Getting what you pay for

Value for money! 

In today's uncertain economy, value for money is more important than ever. 

Essentially, a quilting frame is a tool designed to accomplish a purpose. A good tool is worth every penny! 

If you're thinking about getting a quilting frame, these are the features to look for:

• A good quilting frame will be simple to set up and easy to use.
• A good quilting frame will enable you to machine quilt your
  own tops for a fraction of the cost it would take to pay someone else.
• A good frame enables your sewing machine to glide effortlessly over the top of your quilt instead of wrestling your quilt under the arm of your sewing machine. This transforms machine quilting from a pain in the neck to something truly enjoyable.
• A good frame perfectly tensions the layers of your quilt so you'll never have to baste, pin, glue or tack a quilt again! I think it's worth every penny just for that.
• A good frame is made to measure. This means that it fits you! It's designed for your height, and the length of quilt that you want to make.
• A good frame comes with good, easy to understand, well illustrated instructions.
• A good frame comes with ongoing support, helping you to to get started and become a fluent machine quilter.

A good frame does some of these things, a great frame does them all. There are many frames on the market. While you are shopping around the show ask yourself, "Am I getting value for money?"

Our New English Quilter frames give you many of the features of a long-arm for a fraction of the cost. Made from the finest materials, our frames are designed to last a lifetime. And because they're so easy to set up and take down they fit beautifully in our homes. Best of all we give lots of after sales support and tuition. We want to make sure that you have all the help you need to become a fluent machine quilter!

The New English Quilter gives you value for your money. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Sometime you get a lot more!

Never heard of it

South Oxford at Sunset

Yesterday, Helen came to visit from Oxford. She'd been visiting the machinequilter website for years and decided that it was time to come and have a look for herself. I so enjoyed meeting Helen. Chatting over coffee, we found much in common. We'd lived in similar parts of the UK and even had children the same ages. Helen likes to make smaller quilts, especially to give away as gifts so she was keen on our smaller Art Quilter frames. She's in-between-houses at the moment and is stopping off in Oxford en route to the Cotswolds. With most of her sewing supplies in boxes, Helen's been strip piecing projects and with extra time on her hands she wanted to do more quilting.

As we explored her options we thought that the 4 foot Art Quilter would be perfect for now. The 4 foot Art Quilter frame is just the right size to fit in the smaller house. Yet it performs the same as the larger frames. Once loaded on the frame, each layer of the quilt is perfectly tensioned, so there are no rucks or wrinkles. The frame creates a perfectly tensioned steady surface, leaving the quilter free to focus on the quilting. 

4 foot Art Quilter frame and Juki TL98 P

Helen was particularly impressed with the free and easy movement of the carriage. This is the one feature of the frame that you just can't get from a distance. I love the  reaction that people have when they move the carriage for the first time. Helen was astonished. She'd no idea that the carriage would move so smoothly. She immediately realized the effect that this ease of movement would have on her free-motion-quilting. After taking the frame and table apart and then putting them back together, which just takes 5 minutes. We moved on the the sewing machine. 

notice all the space under the Juki TL98P arm

When I mentioned the name JUKI, Helen said that she'd never heard of it. Lots of people say that. But when I showed Helen the features that make the Juki TL98P the ideal sewing machine to use on a frame she was convinced.

1. The JUKI TL98 P arm is wider AND taller. The height is just as important as the width when you have a fabric pole under the arm of the machine.
2. The JUKI TL98 P goes 1500 stitches per minute, easily without straining because it's a semi-industrial machine on the inside. The industrial speed gives you a lovely line of stitching. The industrial power stitches through multiple layers easily. It looks glam on the outside but it's a workshorse on the inside.
3. The JUKI TL98 P only does a straight stitch so it's simple and therefore easy to tension. All the whistles and bells get in the way. A straight stitch is the only stitch we need on a frame and the JUKI TL98 P does a straight stitch perfectly.
4. The JUKI TL98 P offers all these features in one sewing machine. Many other sewing machines offer one or more of these features. Some are longer but not taller. Some are longer but sew much slower. Most sewing machines are much too complicated and do far too many stitches to be happy while dancing around on a frame carriage. The JUKI TL98 P gives you the space, the speed and the simplicity that are the absolute essential features for a sewing machine to use on a quilting frame.

Well, it was a great day! It was such fun for me to meet Helen. And it was fun for Helen to try out the Art Quilter frame with the Juki TL 98P sewing machine. It was fun sharing all my quilts and drawing out the line designs that would be good for starting out. Helen left happy, excited and inspired. 

Demo's are fun and free. So if you've been drooling over the website for years, like Helen. Ring me for a demo and come and see for yourself. The coffee is good too!

martha@machinequilter.co.uk

01526 378057

Water into Wine

Last week we travelled up to Edinburgh to attend the ordination of my husband's brother. When I rang Uncle Jeremy to find out what he'd like as a gift, he asked if I would quilt him a wedding stole. It would be something that he would wear when he performed certain types of wedding ceremonies. Wow! I'd never made anything like that before. A stole is just a long piece of fabric worn over the shoulders and hanging down the front. How hard could it be?

I took inspiration from the gospel account of the wedding at Cana and decided to illustrate water into wine. I have some gorgeous silk offcuts from my friend Pauline who designs period costumes for museums and films. I was able to find a selection of water and wine colours.

Then my friend Linda Hayes gave me a personal tutorial about working with silks. Following Linda's instructions, I backed the silks in a very light vilene to keep it from fraying, then pieced it together into two long matching strips. I connected it all together with some long sashing strips so we could free-motion embroider the design across both sides of the stole. Then loaded it on the 4 foot Art quilter frame. 

I didn't want the stole to be too thick so I used a thin 'Gonold Stiffy' as the backing. Pauline provided a soft interlining called domette. It helps improve the draping qualities of high quality fabrics like silks by adding lift without any weight. Perfect for my project. I treated it in the same way that I would batting or wadding. So now all three layers were ready to load on the 4 foot Art Quilter frame.

Emily and I chose a variety of threads from the Rainbows and Kimono Silk ranges of Superior Threads to fit with the water into wine theme. We chose a flowing  watery lines design.

After doodling it on paper, Emily machine quilted the design with the Juki TL98P. It turned out really well! We took it off the frame, sliced off the sashing with the rotary cutter and mitered the join so it would hang nicely across the shoulders.

Then we made a scallop shell motif using shot silk backed in fleece,  machine embroidered on the Art Quilter then machine appliquéd to the join. Finally we lined it. Despite the 4 layers, the stole was just the right weight to hang nicely. 

Father Jeremy was delighted with his present! Emily and I were chuffed with how it turned out too.It was the first time we had ever made something like that and we couldn't believe that it turned out so well. It was fun to use our machine quilting skills to create such a different project. Now we've started collecting silk in liturgical colours so we'll be ready for the next one.

Mother's Day

This photo shows my kids nine years ago. Peter, the baby, is just about 4 months old. Ellie with the hat and no hair is nearly 2, Rosie in pink is 4, Emily, holding Peter and her twin Ben are 8 and Katie, the red head in the middle is 10. Thinking back, that was such a busy time.

My friend Eileen came over for a visit that summer. Eileen has a gift for helping people to get vision for what they want to do in their lives. Often we get so used to just doing the next thing that we loose sight of what our real dreams and hopes are. Eileen asked me what I would want to do if money and time were not an issue. I said, "Make a quilt for everyone that I love!" But the way life was, I never thought it would happen.

A couple years later my mom sent me a machine quilting frame. This didn't change the amount of time I had left over for quilting but it did mean that I could make the most of it. And within a few years I really did finish lots of quilts. Not yet for EVERYONE I love, but at least I've made a good start.

So Happy Mother's Day to my mom in America and mothers everywhere. I'm so glad to have lovely little people to quilt for and I'm grateful for my mother too!